Jumping at Shadows
by sapphireswimming
Summary: Dash has a problem and he needs Danny Phantom's help. So he decides to get it by... blackmailing Danny Fenton? Pre-PP, no slash.
1. Prologue

**Are you excited? This is a real-life legitimate chaptered fic, you guys! :3**** Actually, it's a oneshot that kept growing so much that I think it will work better broken into chapters. **

**The inspiration / premise for this story come from an odd twist in the DP episode "What You Want" but I can't tell you any more than that right now or it will give the whole thing away. ;)  
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><p><strong>Jumping at Shadows<strong>

~ Prologue ~

EDIT: no longer a 100 word drabble

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><p>Dash nearly yelped when the light softly clicked off and plunged his bedroom into darkness.<p>

His mother must have seen the glow coming out of the bathroom across the hall and thought that he had been careless and left the doors open again. After all, this was the third night in a row that it had happened.

He had been pretty tired lately, not getting nearly enough sleep, but leaving the door open and the light on was not an oversight on his part. Not tonight, and not the past two nights either. It had been very intentional to let the light flood into his room when he was supposed to be falling asleep, but he didn't dare raise his voice to correct the misunderstanding.

He listened to his mother's footsteps fade away down the hall and soon a deep silence pervaded his senses, as oppressive as the darkness.

For the third night in a row, he just sat upright in his bed, trembling, too terrified to get up. Even if he turned on the main light or the one on his desk, the light switches were too far away. He would have to get up and expose himself on all sides to the shadows if he did that. No, he was much safer here in bed. Besides, his parents would see the light and yell at him for wasting electricity and staying up too late.

So Dash sat in his bed, with his back to the wall, listening to his frantic heartbeats as the minutes passed.

His eyes finally adjusted to the soft moonlight that peered in through the slit above his curtains. It was barely enough for him to see that his hands were shaking.

The jock tried to laugh at himself for being so silly. But just like the part two nights, his laughter failed to snap him out of it. He couldn't help it.

Not with everything that had been going on. Not now that it was completely dark and he was so vulnerable.

The glowing green numbers of his alarm clock looked even more eerie now than they ever had before as they proclaimed that it was nearly midnight.

Dash tried to talk himself out of it, tried to knock some reason into his thick blonde head. But he wasn't listening.

He had never been scared of ghost stories. He had never believed in monsters under the bed, or ghosts in the closet. So then why… _why_ was he staring at the door and clutching at his stuffed bear in a white-knuckled death-grip?

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><p><strong>Cross your fingers and let's hope this works! X3<strong>


	2. Chapter 1: Change of Plans

**I'm experimenting with a style that combines points-of-view and mixes first person thoughts and third person description. Hopefully it isn't too confusing, but let me know...**

**Also, if you read the 100 word drabble prologue, you might want to go back and re-read it because I lengthened it out to explain things a little more.  
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><p>Chapter 1:<p>

Change of Plans

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><p>If Dash had followed his original plans on that Tuesday morning and simply made Kwan drive him to school in his new sports car, he never would have been there to see what happened.<p>

But he didn't ride with Kwan. Instead, he had taken his own pickup to school that day even though the vehicle was kinda dinky. Since his parents refused to buy one for him and instead were making him save up _his own_ money for a new car and there was no possible way that he would ever find his way to behind the counter at the Nasty Burger or another similar job, that fund was finding itself rather short at the moment.

Besides that, he always needed to keep up with the latest CDs and the little things that made him the unquestioned leader of the A-list, and of course, those cost money too. And so, even as important as a sleek, impressive vehicle was, it had to be put onto the back burner for all of the immediate things that people saw every day in the halls of Casper High.

He rarely drove the vehicle he did have keys to since he had to keep up his image as Casper's star quarter-back and the ultimate blonde jock-to-be.

The absence of his own stylish car wasn't necessarily the worst thing in the world. It actually boosted his image to be seen chauffeured around by the A-list if he played it right. What did _not_ help his image, however, was coming to school on his own in a rusty red pickup.

That was why when he drove to school this morning, he parked several streets away, out of eye shot of the high school's curving drive, and walked up the rest of the way. Everyone would think that he had ridden with someone else. No one would question him if they didn't see a physical truck to poke fun at him for.

He had sighed resignedly and picked up his jangling key ring this morning because he needed to mix up his schedule, be unpredictable. He didn't know if driving himself and taking a different route to school would, or even _could_, help him in his situation, but at this point, he was ready to try just about anything.

Three consecutive nights of no sleep other than the uneasy slumbers he quickly pulled himself out of left him more paranoid than he thought he could ever become. His baggy eyes now looked warily over his shoulder, always darting to the shadows expecting to see _it_ again.

He hadn't for a while now, and not yet during the day, but he was convinced that the peace wouldn't last. And he had to make himself scarce so that he could be left alone for the day.

So even though it pained him to do so, he endured driving his beat up truck and walking past the dank alleyways of an old strip mall.

These stores had not fared well since the appearance of ghosts in Amity Park. The town did bizarre tourism, yes. Shopping, no, not so much.

At least, not those fringe stores that never really needed to be built in the first place, although the establishments that sported ghost-based clothing and knick-knacks did an incredible business, even for the locals. It seemed to be a matter of pride for them to show off the thing their town was known for, even if it was only to a million other people who already knew it.

The walk was not a very pleasant one, but he would brave passing the derelict and dark deserted buildings several times over if there was a chance it could help rid him of his nightmare.

And so it was that Dash was around to see a flash of black and white (it took him less than a second to recognize his hero) zoom out of one alleyway and into another, followed closely by a huge metallic foe (the same one who had been chasing him when he and Phantom had been shrunk together).

He could never forget that hideously grinning face, not when it was associated with the worst day of his life. He had been puny for so _long_. And he didn't do puny!

So it was with a little shiver— that he would have denied had anyone pointed it out to him— that he stopped his route to the school and made for the scene of the fight instead.

There was no way that he was going to give up the chance to watch his idol in action, even if he was supposed to be in Lancer's history class in about six minutes. It probably wouldn't even take that long for Danny Phantom to take care of this stinkin' ghost… and it wasn't like Dash really cared to get to class on time anyway.

He didn't even stop to consider the dangers—what could possibly go wrong if Danny Phantom was there to protect him? I mean, he had protected him even without being able to use his powers when they were both… puny. It had been so incredibly awesome!

Maybe, this time, after the ghost boy whooped the other ghost to kingdom come, he could stick around long enough to give his number one fan an autograph. Dash hadn't had the chance to ask him for one after their last adventure together…

And maybe… just maybe… he could help Phantom out again. He could deliver the last punch that would the ghost flying into the soup can and he would be taken care of. Dash had dreamed of doing that for over a year now, perfecting his perfect punch on every single nerd to cross his path for just such an occasion.

If he did help to fight this ghost, then Phantom would have to help him out with his problem. Man, this was all working just perfectly! He couldn't have planned it better himself if he had tried.

Dash walked out boldly into the side street where the fight was just reaching its conclusion.

"Whelp!" the large ghost cried as he hovered frozen in the air, unable to fire the multiple large cannons protruding from various places in his armor. "This is not the last you'll hear of meeeeeeeee-!"

Danny smirked as he held the thermos, currently emitting a growing blue stream of light that had caught the ghost mid-strike.

"Yeah, yeah, Skulker, that's what you always say," he drawled out.

In another second, the hunter had disappeared and Phantom capped the thermos tightly before zooming away.

Dash had hardly had time to register that he had missed his hero in action and that the town's savior was actually out of sight before he called out to him in a last ditch effort to get a face-to-face conversation. He hurried after the young ghost, hoping to find him before he had completely vanished, but stopped momentarily as he was blinded by a blue-white light from around the corner.

The jock gasped. Maybe Phantom had summoned a worm-hole at will to take him to his lair in the Ghost Zone until he was needed again! Or maybe, he was able to… to…

He sped up until he was nearly running, hoping that the flash hadn't made Phantom disappear entirely. He put all of his hard worked conditioning toward getting to where he thought the young ghost was, so it was an especially hard collision he had with something moving back around the corner.

Both parties grunted and fell on their backsides with little sense of decorum. Dash, used to being pummeled by at least four star footballers at a time, recovered quickly, just keeping a hand to his head to keep the world from spinning around him.

He looked up to see the person he had run into and was immediately struck by the all important fact that it was not Danny Phantom. Not even close, actually. No, the kid who had thrown himself around the corner at him was the dweeb Danny Fenton.

Danny was already up and searching around him for something. Within seconds, he had picked up the green and silver cylinder which had rolled over to a stop against the wall. And then he was over, checking the person he had bowled over in his haste to get to class.

He really should have known better than to transform like that— when had his attempts to do something quickly ever result in something good and non-secret threatening for him? He really needed to be more careful. It wouldn't hurt him to wait a few seconds before dashing out of the corner when he had transformed, or even spend a second sticking his invisible head through the wall in order to make sure the coast was clear.

He had been saying to Sam just the other day that he had been getting smarter about these things and so here what did he do but rush out and bump into a citizen of Amity so close to him that they had probably seen the fight. And if they got up and took a look around the corner to see that it was actually a dead end, they would know that he had been part of the attack and he would be screwed.

Okay, time to start some damage control. Figure out who this person was and get their attention away from any connections they may want to make with him and the ghost who had been there a moment before.

He walked over with a hand extended, ready to help up whoever it was when he realized exactly who it was. He stopped short as Dash looked from him to the thermos to the alley and back to his face again in shock.

"Dash!" Danny exclaimed, rather needlessly proclaiming the obvious.


	3. Chapter 2: Found Out

Chapter 3:

Found Out

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><p>Oh man. This was not good, not good at all. Dash, self proclaimed number one fan of Phantom, second only in vocalizing his opinions to Paulina, had just seen him come out of the alley that Phantom had gone into. It wasn't physically possible that Fenton had missed seeing the ghost; they had passed far too close for that to be the case. Even the jock wasn't stupid enough to not connect the dots when they were laid out in front of him like that.<p>

"Fento-?" Dash was finally able to manage. It was a pretty impressive show of coherency, given the fact that he looked like he was going into shock.

Danny's jaw worked up and down silently for a minute. It was all just too much for his brain to handle. Dash was supposed to be in school, in Lancer's classroom now. He was supposed to be far away from here, not following him and trying to get a front row seat to watch Skulker try out his upgraded arm cannon on him.

Not that it did the ghost much good. Heh.

But no, none of this was as it should be. None of it was right. And so it took his brain a much longer time to process everything than it normally would have.

Finally he snuck an arm around to rub the base of his neck and let out a sheepish half-laugh. "Uh, huh, hey, Dash… fancy seeing you here."

Dash looked at him like he was crazy.

"Fenton?" the jock repeated. "Why are you here?" He too was fumbling for what to say and looked around for some kind of support, some sense of normalcy that he could hold onto. He saw the alley he had just been heading for when the two boys collided. "But… I just saw Phantom go into that alley right there," he pointed and started to stumble toward it as Danny rushed out to block him.

"Uh, uh, yeah, yeah," Danny stuttered, frantic to find something to stop the blonde boy from getting any closer and not caring at all if it made sense. His brain kicked him for his attempt just a few seconds later.

(_real smooth… like that will put him off anything… what are you thinking? oh that's right, you aren't._)

Danny's mouth was moving again before his brain had a chance to catch up, trying to salvage the situation as he continued, "But he's gone. Phantom's long gone."

(_think he'll believe you if you repeat it enough? you're starting to sound suspicious…_)

"He's a ghost you know!" Danny exclaimed, ready to face palm the very next minute if it hadn't completely given him away.

(_really, Fenton? I mean, really… that was pretty much the lamest thing you've ever said to the guy… and that's saying something_)

"Um…" he continued solidly, fumbling for something else to say, anything else to say that could distract the footballer from realizing what was going on. "And he doesn't like to stick around for very long."

(_now that was just lame…_)

To his surprise, however, that last sentence got Danny what he wanted. Dash stopped trying to walk into the alley and instead looked down at Danny with new eyes. "How… how would you know that?"

So, maybe that wasn't quite getting what Danny wanted out of the taller kid. He made him stop walking, yes, but at what price?

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. Why did he have to go and put his bit fat foot in his big fat mouth? He'd practically just admitted to being right with Phantom. How could he be so incredibly stupid?

Dash started toward the alley again, looking ready to ask Phantom the answer to the question and Danny moved in front of him to block his path.

"No, no," Danny protested again too vehemently. "Don't go down there. Phantom's long gone by now, just… just stay there… there's nothing to see."

"You know that Phantom just left, you… you saw him?" Dash pressed.

"Ah, no. No, no, no, no, no. I didn't see him," Danny paused to backtrack and realized that thinking on his feet really wasn't his strongest asset as he changed courses while answering yet again. "I mean, I did see him, but only from a distance. I was watching the fight from over there and then he flew out right above me and, yeah, that's all there was to it."

Danny hoped and prayed that Dash would buy the lie. It was possible. It was definitely a possible story that Danny had been walking to school and had just been caught up in everything. It was a probable scenario. It was not the best lie that he had ever come up with, but it was definitely a decent enough one to pass, especially pass by the jock.

But Dash looked skeptical. He looked like he was thinking about two and three and somehow only getting four.

And the blonde was eyeing the thermos. The same thermos that his ghost half had been using minutes before. Oh, no. How could he explain that? Quickly stashing it behind his back didn't do anything to remedy the situation.

"Ahh, look Dash, it's not…" he waved one hand frantically in front of his face as if to ward off any suspicion. "It's not really what… what you think, okay?"

He swallowed hard as Dash pierced him with an especially odd stare. It was accusatory, but of what Danny didn't know. Then it morphed into some sort of awe and respect but that was quickly passed over in favor of becoming his usual totally-better-than-thou smirk.

"I know exactly what it is," Dash said, thoroughly pleased with himself.

"You… you do?" Danny backed away from the jock, not quite sure where this was going.

"Yeah," Dash continued gleefully. "I know all about you… you and your little secret…"

Danny swallowed heavily. He couldn't mean that he knew about Phantom. It couldn't be. He was bluffing. The jock was thinking of something else… some other secret. Oh please don't let Dash know that he was Phantom—not him!

"I… I don't know what you're talking about…" Danny tried pitifully to deny it.

He continued to back up and Dash followed him. The scene was beginning to look painfully similar to one that might happen every day at school, except instead of a row of lockers behind him, Danny found himself pressed against a brick wall. He was still clutching the thermos that housed a peeved Skulker, trying to keep it as inconspicuous as possible while still maintaining a death grip on the thing.

Dash walked forward with a wicked gleam in his eye. "Oh, don't you, Fenton?"

Danny would have pressed himself into the wall if he could without revealing his intangibility powers.

"No, I don't. And, could we please reschedule this for some other time?" He edged away sideways. "Lancer's going to kill me if I'm not in his room in like thirty seconds."

Dash smirked. "I seriously doubt that you could make it there that fast, twerp… even if I was chasing you."

Okay, Dash didn't know that he was Phantom. He wouldn't have called him a twerp if that were the case. But he did think that he knew a huge secret and he was looking forward to blackmailing him with it. High time to be out of here, if you asked Danny.

"What, you don't…" Danny licked his lips as he looked up at the football player. "You don't think I could make it?"

Dash looked from Danny's cowering form behind him to see the distance between them and the school building, rising up out of its field. Then he looked back with a scathing reply…

only to find that Danny was gone. He had disappeared.

Man, that kid was fast. Oh well. Dash shook the dust off his letterman. He could always catch up with Danny later at the school. He smiled. And now… well, now he knew something that he didn't know before. It would certainly be interesting to see how that played itself out.

Except, playing it out with any of his usual tactics might not be the best idea. He couldn't fight this one with all muscle and tough punches. He would actually have to think about how to do this, how to take advantage of the information at his disposal.

Thinking back on what had happened, Dash realized that he might not have handled the situation quite as well as he should have. He might have to act differently around Fenton if what he suspected was actually somehow true. Not that he could imagine it was, but… what can you do but believe what you see?

No, he shouldn't have acted that stuck-up and A-listish. But it wasn't like he could really help it. It was his default setting and the whole shock of seeing Phantom and then Danny and figuring out what he had figured out had set his head spinning in every direction. He couldn't really help it if he had been a bit too disoriented to act appropriately.

He hadn't been thinking clearly, that was for sure. Dash realized that as he set out for Casper High and was sure of it as he passed through the halls long after everyone had fled them at the sound of the bell. But he would have time to figure out what he was going to do about all of this… and all of… _that_…

Man, he had completely forgotten about _that_! He shivered, thinking of what had made him change his plans this morning, the thing that had kept him up at nights, the thing he had been desperately trying to avoid thinking about.

But he had to calm down. He didn't have to think about the nasty creepy stuff and could just focus on this new situation. He would have all class period to think this through, because it wasn't like there would be anything worthwhile to listen to.

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><p>Danny had found his way to his usual seat, ignoring the worried glances Sam and Tucker were shooting at him and looked expectantly at the door. He, of course, had gotten a detention. Dash, who waltzed in several minutes after him, had not.<p>

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><p><strong>I'd love to hear what you think is going on and how I am doing... :)<strong>


	4. Chapter 3: Escape Attempt

Chapter 3:

Escape Attempt

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><p>Danny's mind had most definitely not been on his schoolwork throughout the day. No, instead he had been worrying about what Dash thought he knew about him and what he was going to be able to do about it. Anything that gave Dash any more leverage over him than his towering six foot frame already did was bad.<p>

Very bad.

And because he didn't know what it was exactly that the guy thought he knew, Danny kept on worrying about it more and more and more and more until neither Sam nor Tucker could do anything to calm him down.

History passed by in a worried daze. Notes from his friends asking what in the world was going on started to pile up on his desk, unanswered and unnoticed.

Math was a nightmare, because even though Dash wasn't very good at the subject and the teacher came down the aisle several times to frown at his work on the timed team drills, the blonde managed to look up over the row to flash a positively evil smirk at him.

Thankfully they didn't share Literature, but even without Dash in his direct line of vision, Danny was antsy and completely unaware that he was being called on to answer some question about a fat man called Falstaff until the teacher had actually tapped him on the shoulder.

He spent lunch running around the building trying to avoid Dash and teachers and the A-listers and his friends, hoping to catch a few minutes of time to think things through alone.

He ended up with no food, two disgruntled friends, and a peeved teacher for causing a ruckus in the halls, but at least he hadn't been cornered by the footballer. That made it a success in his book, no matter how much his stomach was grumbling afterward.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of dropping a thousand test tubes in chemistry, staring blankly at the wall in study hall, and hiding in the janitor's closet through PE.

There was no possible way that he was going to voluntarily put himself in a position to be pummeled, punched, punted, or pelted by Dash after what had happened that morning. And knowing the bully, the blonde would find some way to come after him in the gym with much bodily harm done to one party and no repercussions on the other.

Coach Teslaff would be ready to squash him to jelly and then make him run a marathon when she finally caught up with him, but it would all be worth it if he could make it through this nightmarish day alive. He was willing to run that marathon if it meant Dash couldn't keep up with him.

He had actually, somehow, miraculously managed to avoid the bully since lunch. Danny had caught glimpses of the boy looking for him, but he managed to slip into lockers or around corners quickly enough to remain undetected in the halls of the school.

He just needed to keep this up game of hide-and-seek for a couple more minutes. The bell had already rung and most of the students had left for home or the mall or the Nasty Burger. Dash knew that he had at least one detention and surely he wasn't desperate enough to wait the hour after school. He couldn't be that high of a priority. There was always tomorrow, right?

Plus, Dash had to catch a ride home with Kwan or whoever he had caught a ride with today… he couldn't just wait around indefinitely… oh man. But he had seen Dash walking to school today. He hadn't come with anyone and he didn't have to leave with anyone. He had all the time in the world to wait right outside of Lancer's door. Oh man, this was not good.

Danny peered out around a hallway corner to see if the coast was clear only to discover that it wasn't. A small group of A-listers were waiting around his locker as if they had nothing better to do than fill the hallway of the losers after school was released.

Danny fell back around the corner very quickly, hoping that nobody had seen him, but he knew even before he heard the cry that Dash had. Dash had been on the lookout the entire time and saw the bushy black hair peeking out around the corner. In a flash, toned legs took Dash across the floor in a speed that he rarely felt the need to exhibit in a practice. He tore down the hallway, followed by Kwan and a couple other kids who were only too glad to chase after the dweeb.

Danny had no chance to escape the group without using his ghost powers. They were all Casper's top athletes and were motivated by seeing the most fun they would have all week at the end of this chase.

They were too close behind him; he hadn't had enough of a head start to go invisible or intangible. They could see him. To disappear now would be to definitely expose him before many Phantom-crazy teenagers instead of being confronted by one who might have an inkling of what was going on.

Definitely not a decent trade off there.

Even the adrenaline pounding through his veins and propelling his feet faster than he had ever before had cause to run in human form was not enough to help him escape. Dash had him pinned against the wall within several seconds and the guys with him soon added their arms to the clamping down of a struggling Danny.

Fortunately for them, all of the teachers and figures of authority had gone home for the day. No one was going to break this up.

"Hey Fentone, I want to have a little talk with you…" Dash drawled.

The rest of his posse grinned, knowing full well what one of Dash's little talks would do to the kid. He would end up inside a locker with Dash's socks for the night, or with his underwear flying high next to the red, white, and blue.

It would be an interesting "conversation" for them to listen to, that much was for sure. Dash had been talking all day long of how he wanted to corner the black-haired kid and now they had. It was time for the fun to begin.

Danny eventually stopped struggling. There wasn't anything that the wimpy human Fenton could do against half of the Casper High football squad. But all the same, it went against everything in him to allow himself to be restrained like that.

He found that it was easier if he didn't look at their eyes, the eyes that gleamed with the self-importance of bullies ready to pommel their next victim who had no clue how easily he could take them all out. So he looked down at the floor between the hoard of them.

Dash was the closest as he had gotten to Danny first. He held him a little too closely, breathing very heavily with a triumphant and almost relieved gleam in his eye. Danny looked away once he had recognized the look. Whatever happened would not be pleasant for him, he could be certain of that, and he began resigning himself to a particularly nasty whaling session.

He winced, suddenly wondering why he had to put up with all of it. Why didn't he just disappear? Blame a ghost when he reappeared the next day…

Dash didn't let him put any inklings of his half-baked plan into action, however, but pulled him off the wall with one hand on the back of his shirt collar and the other holding onto his arms. He flashed a smile at his followers and told them to go home.

A couple of the boys protested at first, saying they'd stuck around long enough that they should at least be able to get a piece of the action. Dash pinned them with a stare hard and long enough to remind them exactly who was the king of Casper High and whose touchdowns had given their team any kind of recognition or special treatment with the teachers. Still disappointed, they trickled away one by one, but not without throwing one last glance or taunt at Danny.

Soon it was just Dash and Kwan left.


	5. Chapter 4: Out of the Frying Pan

**I'm trying not to let the updates go very long, but looking at how rough and short my first drafts of these chapters are combined with my work load... I apologize if it takes longer than you like.**

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><p>Chapter 4:<p>

Out of the Frying Pan

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><p>The group of A-listers grumbled at being dismissed. They resented being told to go home when Danny was all cowed and ready to get beat up in a spectacular fashion. They had been looking forward to this all day, almost as much as Dash had, egged on by their leader's constant comments about how badly he was going to whale on Fenton and how things were going to go down.<p>

So the group was understandably disappointed at being told to go home, but they saw that they had no choice. No one went against the king of Casper High.

They stomped loudly enough down the halls to let him know that they weren't happy about this, but by the time they were out of the building they had struck up plans to meet at the Nasty Burger or hang out with the latest Call of Duty at someone's house.

After a few minutes, the footballers were gone. It took a little while longer for the echoes to die down and Dash to decide that his posse was gone and the coast was truly and finally clear.

It was only then that Dash decided he could let his guard down the tiniest fraction of an inch, not releasing his grip on Danny any, but relaxing some of the tension in his expression and shoulders.

It gave Danny hope that he might possibly be able to wheedle his way out of this mess now that there wasn't a whole gang of guys ready to beat up on him if he moved a single muscle the wrong way.

The odds had definitely moved in his favor and he began to entertain ideas that such an escape was possible, even if the rational part of his brain told him not to get his hopes up too much.

Still, he had to give it a shot.

"Hey Dash…" he tried to ease into the swing of things here. "You know that I'm late for detention, right? And Lancer is really upset with me right now, so I don't think that he would be happy if he found out that you were holding me up."

Maybe, maybe, maybe Dash would listen to reason. Danny crossed his fingers. He didn't expect it of the jock, but with his hero job came an unflagging belief in the goodness of humankind, even down to the football players.

Dash looked at him, clearly surprised at what he had said, at the fact that Danny was late to detention. It wasn't the fact that he was _late_; that was perfectly normal—he was late all the time, actually.

It was fairly obvious, however, that Dash had forgotten that he had caused the slim boy to get detention first thing this morning by running into him and detaining him on the site of his fight with Skulker. Detentions didn't mean much to the guy. He had never had to deal with them, given his star status with every single detention-doling teacher.

But part of the statement did register in his mind. If Danny was supposed to be in detention right now, Lancer must still be in the building and he could come snooping around at any moment searching for the missing delinquent.

He couldn't let the vice principal find them… find him and what it would look like he was doing. The man could only turn a blind eye so much and when there was no one else to look at in a deserted school, it would be hard to escape the notice of the teacher.

"Okay…" Dash acknowledged, nodding his head slowly.

Danny snapped to attention, his jaw hanging open at a ridiculously wide angle. Disbelief, shock were plainly written on his features, but he couldn't blame himself even if he had been able to see how ridiculously he looked at the moment. He was still too floored at what had happened.

Had… Dash… actually… just listened to him? Followed his advice? Made a smart decision for once in his life? It was almost too good to be true.

"Kwan, grab his other arm," Dash ordered.

Of course it was too good to be true.

Dash began to tug on Danny, drawing him further down the hallway. It soon became clear to the helpless teen that Dash had no intention of letting him go to detention, but was merely moving to a less conspicuous location in case Lancer did try to find him.

Only after they had made it nearly down the length of the hallway did Danny begin to realize where they were going and just how bad this whole thing could end up being. He swallowed heavily and began to back peddle as Kwan opened the door to the bathroom. Oh no. He was not going to get dragged into the bathroom by two guys who felt that they could do anything to him that they wanted. No. That was not right and he wasn't going to let them do anything to him.

His heart was racing as he began to imagine every swirlie he'd ever gotten rolled into one. The prospect was not a pleasant one.

He would tell them the truth before he let anything like that happen.

As Phantom, he could give them both a piece of his mind that they would never ever forget.

Then Danny shook his head, what was he thinking? The whole point of everything he had done so far was to keep anyone from figuring out the truth. If Dash and Kwan, the leaders of the A-list found out his secret, there was no way that everyone in the entire school wouldn't know about it by the time the bell rang at the end of the day. And shortly after that, the entire town would know. He would have to leave, hightail it out of there before the GIW showed up to cart him off to sector 51 and inject him with so many things that his head was already beginning to spin just thinking of them.

They were inside the bathroom now. Dash kicked open a stall and shoved Danny inside. He looked up with wide blue eyes. What on earth was Dash going to do? His heart beat loudly and painfully for a few very long moments.

Then, without taking his eyes off of Danny, Dash quietly told Kwan to go home.

His right hand man and best friend was shocked. They always did the bullying together. Surely, he couldn't have meant it when he told him to go home. Right? But Dash stood there, looking fixed in his ideas and wearing a threatening expression that he usually reserved for nerds and the opposing football team.

Kwan didn't understand why, but he knew what his friend wanted. He would honor his request. So with a halting, "Okay, Dash," Kwan walked out of the bathroom and left the school.

Both boys held their breath until they were sure he was long gone.

Dash sighed in relief and Danny had absolutely no idea what to expect now. Nothing about this was Dash-like any longer. He didn't know what kind of a game the jock was playing, but it seemed like someone had changed the rules without telling him and he was just thoroughly bewildered.

He looked up expectantly, but the last thing he expected was for Dash's countenance to completely change.

Dash took a deep breath and backed up, far away from Danny so that he was leaning back against one of the sinks.

Instead of the proud, tough bully, he looked like a tired, wary, and sorry teen. He ran a hand through his blonde hair as Danny tried to reconcile the Dash with a minute ago with the Dash facing him now.

The change was so abrupt, as if a switch had been thrown or an overshadowing ghost had been knocked out of him.

He had seen that happen before, had ripped the ghost out of Dash himself on the football field. The kid in front of him looked about as tired and lost and confused as he had when he lost his huge football-playing ghost half.

What Danny saw now was a side that had been taking prominence over the past several days, but a side which Dash was careful to never let any of his underlings see. It would have been the social death of him.

It made Danny really begin to wonder what was going on. What would have made Dash look so… lost?

So… haunted?

He was still the head of the A-list.

Paulina was his devoted girlfriend (well, devoted to him unless Phantom was around).

And even though his game had suffered a little bit since the incident where Danny had pulled the ghost out of him during the football match, it wasn't enough to affect Casper High's record, or his popularity, or the offers of a hundred colleges across the country.

He should have had nothing to worry about.

It was completely unlike the jock to let anything faze him. Well, anything except a loss, a bad test grade, a bad practice, a bad day when he would take it out on him of all the people in the high school, but other than that, yeah, nothing fazed Dash.

"Uhh… Dash?" Danny planned to ask what on earth the kid was planning to do with him now and started out slowly because he still didn't really know what was happening.

It was good for him that he had started out slowly and hesitantly, because even as slow and hesitant as it was, Dash was jarred out of his daze and bolted upright.

When his eyes rested on Fenton holding onto the bathroom stall door looking at him with an odd expression on his face, he suddenly remembered who he was and who Fenton was and what he was doing.

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><p><strong>Well, hope you liked it. And, as always, reviews make my day. :)<strong>


	6. Chapter 5: Into the Fire

**I know some of you want this story to have longer chapters, more action, etc. That's never been the aim of this fic. In this... basically glorified oneshot... I wanted to focus on a long and slow exploration of characterization, realistically long conversation, building of suspense and mystery, and experimenting with narration styles. So I'm sorry, and I WILL be doing more exciting things in other stories, but that's just not what this one was ever meant to be.**

**Please just accept it for what it is. And I hope you continue to enjoy it anyway. :)**

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><p>Chapter 5:<p>

Into the Fire

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><p>In a flash, Dash's old demeanor had popped back up, although now that Danny had seen what was there before it, he could find the little cracks in the façade. He could see how upset Dash was, even though he refused to let on.<p>

It was quite unsettling to see Dash here like that. And it made him wonder all the more what he was doing here.

"Now…" Dash began with almost all of his old boisterousness. "I'm sure you're wondering what you're doing here." He forced a leer too completely take over his face.

Danny swallowed, but his superhero banter reflex kicked in and he replied before his brain could catch up to the fact with a flippant, "Yeah, actually, I was."

"Well, I'll tell ya'," Dash replied without missing a beat.

Almost immediately: "Thanks."

Then Dash finished with a "You're welcome."

And that was that. It was just a short exchange, but it threw Danny off.

He sat, still on the toilet, and blinked. Several times.

Dash had just… said 'you're welcome' to him? Practically acted civilly to him? Agreed to tell him what was going on instead of sticking his head in the sink?

None of that seemed like the jock. Something was up. And something being up was never a good sign for Danny.

He stared up at the guy, wondering where on earth all of this was going. There was still enough of the old bully left in Dash's face to keep him from asking, but it was definitely an idea he considered.

After a minute or so, though, Dash quelled his curiosity by taking the initiative and starting to speak.

"Okay, Fenton, listen up." He pinned Danny with a stare. "You listening, Fenton?"

"Yeah, yeah, Dash," Danny nodded quickly, "I'm listening."

"Good," he sneered. "'Cause I'm not going to explain this twice."

Danny didn't know that Dash was capable of explaining _anything_ twice, but set that thought aside to listen to what the guy was going to say. It wouldn't do to antagonize the guy when he was already in such a vulnerable position. Besides, he was on the edge of his seat, waiting for it, waiting for whatever Dash thought he knew.

At least they were alone now. If something happened, no one would be around to witness it.

Or… was that a bad thing in this instance?

Yeah, he thought it was probably bad. Dash might beat him up until he couldn't take it any more and would transform to defend himself. If things got that bad, that would be a time when it would be good to have some help around. Danny gulped just imagining it.

Lancer was still in the building, though, right? If he yelled loud enough… the principal might just walk in to save the day. And then Danny would never fall asleep in one of his classes again. Unless it had been a really rough day. Or maybe Lancer had given up on his ever appearing in detention and just figured that he would give him double tomorrow.

It wouldn't surprise him, given the way everything in his life seemed to be going. Nobody seemed to have faith in him anymore. His parents had given up trying to make him obey curfew. His teachers had abandoned understanding his spotty attendance. And now, they probably wouldn't even believe in him enough to make it to detention.

Great.

"I know all about you, Fenton," Dash stated.

Yep. That was the way his life seemed to be going these days. Right down the drain.

Danny stopped breathing for a moment and the blood began to drain out of his face. He looked up, hoping that what he had heard was not what the guy had actually said.

That was right; it was a trick of the ears, telling him exactly what he didn't want to hear. It was possible, right? It would be a dirty trick his mind would play on him given the high state of stress he had been in this entire time, right? Yeah?

Dash looked at Danny as the boy went even paler than he thought imaginable. The kid was already dead white to begin with… he could actually… get paler? Man, he would be beating the ghosts out if he kept it up at this rate. Could people get so drained of blood that they became see-through? Whoa, that would be freaky.

But, the fact that the loser in front of him was so visibly paling meant that he was doing something right. He knew he had struck a chord with the kid. He had found his secret; he had something to hold over him now. And if he had something to hold over him, that meant he had leverage, even more leverage than normal, to make him do whatever he wanted, something more than one of his normal homework related requests. He might just be able to pull this off.

He had been right. This was all going exactly according to plan. He was so proud of himself for finally having figured out how to go about this. His problems would be over in no time.

"What did you say, Dash?" Danny managed to breathe out, interrupting the Jock's self-congratulatory streak. He wanted confirmation.

"I know all about you and your secret."

And he got it. There it was.

So he hadn't been hearing things. Dash had said that he knew all about him and his secret. With that one final stroke, all of his hopes were completely shattered. There was nothing else he could do. There was nothing for it now…

This was bad. This was very bad. Dash was one of the worst people on the face of the planet to know his secret. Man, this was going to be the end of the world. This was sooooo not good.

But maybe… just maybe… the inkling started to grow in Danny's mind and he latched onto with a veracity that might have startled him if he hadn't been clinging to it for dear life… maybe the secret Dash thought he knew wasn't the secret Danny thought Dash knew.

They could be two separate things. It was possible.

There was nothing to say that Dash knew anything about his being Phantom at all. He didn't really know what other secret the big blonde thought he could have, but it was worth it to hold onto such a sweet thought, for a moment anyway, that he didn't care if it wasn't all that feasible.

"And…" Danny swallowed, daring to hope beyond all hoping even as he asked the all-revealing question. "What secret would that be?"

Dash scoffed and tossed his head back with one of his trademark smirks.

"Oh please. Don't think that you can pull that innocent stunt on me. I've done it and seen it enough to know when you're faking it. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Danny's heart was pounding in his chest, so hard that it ached. He could feel its thumping hammering against him and the thin fabric of his shirt moved with ever beat.

"Well," he asked timidly, hesitantly, hoping to stave off the inevitable even though the words coming out of his mouth made that all but impossible. He just hoped that he wasn't antagonizing the jock even further into coming up with something extra devious for him.

"Could you just explain a bit anyway? It's not like I can really read your mind," he said, a touch more flippantly than he decided was prudent.

Dash sighed a sigh full of exasperation. Well, if the kid was going to go and make things difficult for him, he wondered why he should even bother explaining it all.

If Danny was really that ignorant of all of the cool stuff happening right around him because of his… special status, then he didn't deserve them… or the special treatment he was getting right this very minute.

Dash didn't have to be this nice. Sheesh, he would much rather be pounding on him than being nice to… Fentina.

But if he pounded on the kid, he would never figure this whole thing out, and would never get _that thing _taken care of.

And that was his number one priority at the moment.

That thought was the only thing keeping him nice.

Dash realized a second later that is was probably a good thing he had continued to play nice as another thought crossed his mind in a streak of lightning. Danny was playing dumb because Dash… knew his secret. Secret, as in, stuff that shouldn't be known. Of course he wasn't going to own up to it to anyone else!

If anyone thought that he would own up to his teddy bear collection, despite any mountains of evidence they might possibly be able to obtain, they had another thing coming.

He guessed it made sense, in some weird way.

Dash actually smiled, because it reminded him of all the power he was going to have over the kid.

He decided then and there, as he continued to stare at Danny, that blackmail was a wonderful thing.

Maybe that saying about the word being mightier than the machine gun might be onto something… He didn't even have to break a sweat or throw a punch and he could have Fenton quaking in his shoes.

It felt really good.

It was the first time he realized to potential in non-physicality. There was power there too. Lots of power that he could tap into.

But of course, he realized that his silent gloating and sudden fascination with this new world of brain power would have to stop for the moment. He could pick it up again later. But it was imperative now that he make use of it before Danny walked out on him.

If he kept up with this inner monologue, the guy would be perfectly justified in walking out and he might be too engrossed in his thoughts to notice and do anything about it. Now, that could not be allowed to happen.

A brief tremor of fear ran through Dash's mind as memories of shadows and creepy things edged forward. They were, after all, the reason he was so determined to see this through. But he couldn't think about those things now, couldn't let the images surface, couldn't see…

It would make him freeze up. It would make him seem scared in front of the geek and he didn't do scared.

So he glared down at the black haired boy and laid his cards out on the table with a smirk. "I know about you and Phantom."

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><p><strong>Duhn duhn duhnnnn...<strong>


	7. Chapter 6: Moment of Truth

**Looks like I am alive after all... :D Not sure how well Danny is faring, though... hehe.  
><strong>

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><p>Chapter 6:<p>

Moment of Truth

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><p><em>"I know about you and Phantom."<em>

.

If Dash hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would have said it was impossible for Danny to become any paler than he had been, but he would have just been proven wrong.

Dash was worried for a minute that Danny would pass out. He would be no good to him then. But the skinny kid didn't pass out, so Dash continued on pinning him with his knowledgeable stare, hoping that the results would be just as good as they had started.

"I know that you sneak out of class to go fight ghosts," he added when he thought it was time for the next bombshell.

Danny went white and tried to mask—quite ineffectually— his hyperventilating from the bigger teenager.

"I totally understand why you haven't told your parents," Dash explained in what he felt was an extremely nonchalant voice. "I mean, come on, they're ghost hunters! They would kill you."

Danny gulped and gripped the toilet seat until his knuckles were white. He tried to back up as much as possible, but it wasn't much, so he more ended up squirming in place than moving farther away from the blonde.

"I mean, really, I gotta give you credit for having some guts. I don't think that I would do what you do in your situation. 'Cause, helping out Phantom, public enemy number one? That's gotta be like, the top thing on your parents not to-do list, right?"

Wait…

"What…" Danny barely breathed out, not sure that Dash would ever be able to hear him.

"Oh come on. I'm not stupid, Fenton. I saw you this morning. I know that you help Phantom during his fights. You give him your parent's weapons and carry the soup can back and forth for whenever he needs it."

"It's a thermos," Danny corrected quietly and automatically.

"Whatever." Dash waved him off. "The point is, you help Phantom and you can't let anyone know about it. It's too dangerous for you to be doing at your age so any adult who heard what you were doing would make sure you stopped as soon as they heard. And anyway… you are helping a _ghost_. Not just any ghost, either. But Phantom. Danny Phantom. The ghost that's taken Amity by storm. The one that's on the news every night. The one that's on all of the ghostly-awareness billboards. The town's public enemy number one and number one property damager."

Danny thought about lifting a finger to protest that last accusation, but decided that it wasn't worth it. So he let Dash continue.

"Your parents would kill you if they find out. So would half of the people in Amity, if they knew."

Up until this point, the jock had been very confident, but now he stopped and asked for confirmation in a voice that shook too much if he really wanted to convince someone he was blackmailing them.

"… Right?"

That was when Danny faced a fork in the road. How would he answer Dash?

He had recovered enough of his brainpower to realize what Dash was saying. His secret was safe. The jock hadn't put the pieces together or tried to say that he _was_ Phantom. Just that he _helped _Phantom. Which was a totally different thing. And really, the idea that he could be Phantom was ridiculous to the normal bystander anyway, since humans were alive and ghosts were dead. He couldn't be both at the same time. That was kind of how that sort of thing went.

No one would ever be able to guess that it was true. That he was the same person.

So he could tell Dash point blank that he had been wrong. Danny wasn't sneaking out of class to go help Phantom. Not technically. Dash's story was enough of a stretch that he could truthfully tell Dash off without having any qualms whatsoever.

There was absolutely no reason that he had to sit through being blackmailed by a stupid football player who didn't know anything.

But he suddenly realized that saying that wouldn't work.

He couldn't walk out of here without Dash having some hold upon him. Dash was sure that he had something to pin on Danny. Danny had even acted like Dash had been right about his secret this whole time, because, up to a point, he had been.

If he suddenly backed out now and said that Dash could tell whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted, the jock might get too curious. He might—not that he really thought this would happen, but he might—piece together that if he heaved a sigh of relief now, there was some other secret that if Dash could manage to find out, he could hold above his head.

If that happened, he would be in trouble. Dash would be on his tail from first to last bell trying to figure out what it was and he would never have a chance to leave and go ghost when he needed to.

Or he might lash out at him in desperation. Tell everyone the supposed connection to Phantom. People might listen to the story Dash had come up with. After all, it was more plausible than the truth, and just as likely to get him in trouble with the law, the Guys in White, and his parents. Plus, he really couldn't afford to have anyone connecting him to Phantom in any way. You give the ball a nudge and it will eventually roll in the right direction.

If he dared Dash to tell someone, the bully would.

And if someone knew he was supposedly working with Phantom, Dash was right; his parents really would kill him. Not rip him apart molecule by molecule, but kill him, certainly. And after they were done grounding him for life, and training him "properly" in the ways of ghost fighting, they would put some device on him to monitor his every movement. Again, he would be unable to go ghost or fight off the specters that he really needed to fight off.

And that was the bearable stuff. His Dad probably wouldn't, but if his Mom started asking the right questions about him and Phantom… yeah… not good.

In the end, he figured that the safest and best thing to do really would be to say that Dash had been right and just live with that.

He sighed.

What he didn't do to keep his secret safe…

So Danny nodded.

"Oh good." Dash sighed, showing a bit too much relief in the fact that he was supposedly right all along to make a successful blackmailer. "So… I won't tell anyone either…" he let the phrase linger so that Danny knew what was coming.

"As long as you do something for me…"

Danny knew he didn't have a choice. Not really. No one being blackmailed ever really had a choice. Not if they wanted their lives to retain any semblance of normality.

"Okay, Dash. What is it?"

He wondered briefly what he was getting himself into. Endless locker-room clean up duties, doing Dash's math homework, submitting to being shoved in his locker more publicly and more often…?

Nothing seemed appealing, but there was nothing he could do. He might be able to talk to Sam and Tucker and they could think of something, but until then, he would have to do whatever Dash told him to do…

Danny realized then that he had literally sold his soul to the devil. He was now bound to do whatever Dash told him to do and he had to do it unquestioningly or other people would find out about his so-called partnership with Phantom.

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><p><strong>One more chapter if all goes according to plan.<br>**


	8. Chapter 7: Unraveling the Mystery

**Here it (finally) is!**

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><p>Chapter 7:<p>

Unraveling the Mystery

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><p>In truth, though, it was the suspense now that was killing him. Danny just wanted Dash to tell him what he had to do already. What homework to do, which locker to inhabit, how much lunch money to hand over…<p>

But the jock wasn't saying anything. He was looking at Danny while biting his lip. That wasn't how he should have been looking. He should have been triumphant, rejoicing in his victory as a successful first-time blackmailer. Instead, he looked like he had been the one threatened.

"Uhh… Dash? What is it?" Danny finally ventured to ask. Surely, anything that the blond asked him to do would be better than waiting around to hear it as he imagined every single worst case scenario.

Dash looked up from the ground and caught his eye to say the last thing that Danny had ever thought he would say.

"I need your help."

Danny stared. Then he blinked a few times. Somehow, he resisted the urge to bang a hand on his head as if to clear his ears like some old actor in a silent film would do.

"What?" he managed to choke out instead.

"I need your help, Fenton." All of a sudden, Dash was on the ground in front of him, holding out his hands like he was begging him for something. "You gotta help me!"

"Whoa, whoa, just… hold on a sec…" Danny put his hands out and tried to understand what he was seeing. Dash was kneeling on the ground begging him for help when he had just blackmailed him? Where was his former bravado? Why was he staring over his shoulder like a little kid would look at his closet door around midnight?

What was going on?

Why did Dash think he needed _his_ help, of all people? The guy beat him up whenever he felt like it and his own grades weren't even much higher than the jock's. It wasn't as if he could tutor the guy…

"Get up, Dash; you're creepin' me out."

Dash got up and sniffed, rubbing the back of one hand across his nose. "You just… you gotta help me…"

He looked pitiful. Really pitiful. Danny tried to figure out what was going on. "Okay… but what makes you think that I can help you?"

"You help Phantom," Dash said, as if that answered everything.

And, in a twisted way, Danny guessed it sort of did.

Phantom was Dash's hero. He always had been. Now that he needed help, he went to the one human he knew had some sort of contact with the ghost. Little did he know that he was pleading with his idol in disguise. The irony of it all made Danny want to laugh, scream, or explain his secret identity.

Of course, he did none of those things, but instead tried to figure out more of the situation at hand.

"I… don't really do that much, Dash. I don't even fight with him, I just provide him with a couple gadgets from my parent's lab."

"But… you still… you help him. You know him! You could get him to help. He could do it. Just ask him! But you have to. I don't think that I can take much more of this."

Danny thought he understood a bit more now. It wasn't _him_ that Dash wanted help from, of course not. He wanted to use him to get to Phantom. He should have guessed, really. It wouldn't have made much sense for Dash Baxter to come crawling to Danny Fenton for help.

Danny Phantom, however, was a different matter entirely. Being around the ghost would totally boost his image, even if it was only because he had begged for help.

But seriously. Phantom patrolled the city and fought ghosts. He didn't do math homework or fix jock's social problems. Even without getting into the whole secret identity thing with a normal teenager, "Phantom" had much more important things to do, like saving everyone in Amity. And Dash thought that he could somehow manage to pull some strings to get the ghost to do whatever he wanted? Fly-by the field during a game to make him more popular or something?

Man, this guy had some ego problems.

"Dash… I don't think it's Phantom's place to help you out with your little problems. He has a hard enough time fighting ghosts. I'm not sure I can get him to help."

"No, you have to make him help. And it's not something silly, I promise. I really need his help."

"I'm not sure that I can get his help. It's not like I hang out with Phantom and pal around with him or anything like that. I don't even know where he is until he shows up to fight a ghost. I can't just walk over to his house and tell him that you want him to do something. We're not friends; I can't just ask him favors. I really don't think this will work."

"You have to try, at least! You have to promise me that you'll try. You have to- I just… I just blackmailed you. So if you don't ask Phantom for help, I'll… I'll tell the whole world that you help him. I'll tell your parents!" Dash finally managed with a shaky voice. Not convincing, although the underlying threat was.

Danny sighed.

"Okay, what's the problem?"

Dash looked at him, his face now transformed into that mask of vulnerability and fear that looked so out of place on his normally composed and proud expression. Danny wondered for the first time if something really was wrong with the guy.

As the school's star athlete, the guy dating Paulina, the bully leading instead of experiencing every whaling session, and the one kid in the whole school who seemed to be able to do no wrong in any of the teacher's eyes, Danny had always thought that Dash had it good. Better than he did, anyway. But suddenly, this seemed serious. This whole thing was just so weird, so out of character.

On a hunch, he leaned forward and narrowed his gaze, but soon satisfied himself that Dash was not overshadowed. Not only did his ghost sense not even twitch around him, but his eyes weren't discolored and, perhaps most importantly, he hadn't tried to attack him yet.

Plus, any ghost would have known his real secret and wouldn't have tried to blackmail him with this story.

So it made him really interested in finding out what was really going on with the guy. The answer he got, though, was not at all what he had thought he would hear.

"I think I'm being haunted."

Danny quirked an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

He lived in the most haunted town in the world for several years and he was just now figuring out that the place was haunted? Wow. Even he hadn't expected Dash to be quite that slow.

But, Dash had phrased it oddly if that was what he had meant. He said that 'he was being haunted'… singling himself out of the crowd. No, he didn't mean that Amity was haunted. That much was obvious even to football players. And Dash had even fought a few ghosts in his time. The thought of one shouldn't make him shiver in his shoes and crawl to loser Fenton for help. No, this was something different.

Fortunately for him, Danny was just the person to know what to do.

"No, seriously," Dash implored. "You have to believe me. There's this ghost that keeps on following me and appearing randomly and it's freaking me out because I don't know how to make it go away."

He looked over his shoulder, then the door and mirrors as if expecting the ghost to show up right then and there to prove his point. But nothing appeared. The bathroom looked the way it always did. Danny closed his eyes and tried to determine if there had been a drop in temperature, but he couldn't detect one, even a small one. So there was no ghost here.

But Dash wasn't lying about this. He was too scared out of his wits to be making this up. And crawling to the loser wimp for help didn't seem to be in keeping with the jock's idea of a practical joke.

Danny furrowed his forehead in thought at what Dash had said the ghost did. It didn't seem to be normal behavior for a ghost. To just… show up and do no damage…

"How many times have you seen it? When has it shown up?"

"It's never at the same time, but I'll see it several times per day. And almost always at night too… when I'm in my room." The tall boy shivered violently.

Danny smirked. "What, it's under your bed?"

"No, in my closet."

"Oh. Well, um, what does it do?"

"It creeps me out! I can't sleep at night when that thing is there."

"O-okay, Dash, okay. Just calm down," Danny said, reaching out a hand to steady the blond. "Does it say anything to you?"

"No."

That ruled out nearly half the ghostly population. Most specters simply loved to announce their presence to the world with long winded titles. Take Tecnhus. Or even the Box Ghost. His introduction was not nearly as long, but still, "I am the Box Ghost" every single time the guy came out of the Ghost Zone meant that Danny had heard it several hundred times. And it got old pretty quickly.

"Does it try to communicate to you or touch you or take anything out of your room?"'

"No."

Well, then it wasn't a ghost obsessed with teddy bears. If that was the case, the ghost might very well have reason to visit Dash's closet every night. But nothing was gone. No toys, no lettermen jackets. And he had seen the ghost around town too, and perhaps even at school. It wasn't interested in anything Dash had. But it was interested in following him around.

If it had been a ghost looking for a friend like Klemper, he would have made his intentions painfully obvious from the beginning. Then, too, if it wanted to attack, it would have done so by now without this skulking in the background.

Danny was starting to agree with Dash on this one. This didn't make any sense and that fact alone was rather unsettling.

"Has it done _anything_ to you?"

"No…." Dash slowly admitted, "But it might!"

"Okay… is it a ghost you've seen before? Is it Skulker? Poindexter?"

"Who are they?"

Danny sighed. Of course Dash wouldn't know any of his foes by name. He was still calling Phantom Inviso-Bill a few months ago.

"Skulker is the big metal suit of armor with lots of guns and flaming green hair. Poindexter is the black and white guy who came out of locker 724…"

"No. It isn't any of those. It isn't any of the ghosts that Phantom fights."

Danny was confused. A ghost that he didn't fight? A ghost that he wasn't familiar with? That he didn't even know was out? That was not a pleasant idea at all. He didn't think that his security had been that lax, but who knows what damage a ghost who could get past his defences could manage.

"Then… can you describe it?"

Dash shifted around, clearly uncomfortable with this part.

"Well… that's the weird thing…" Dash paused.

Oh? There was something even weirder about this situation? Danny wasn't sure that it was possible, so he looked warily at the jock while awaiting an answer.

"It kinda… looks like… me." Dash looked up from the floor to lock frightened eyes with Danny. "I think… I'm being haunted by my own ghost."

THE END.

* * *

><p><strong>In the episode "What You Want," Danny rips out the super-scary-footballer-Dash-Ghost and throws it into the portal. Which means that there's a ghost of Dash floating around the Ghost Zone. That's the basis for this story.<strong>

** And… that's all, folks. This story is over. I've thought for several months about how I could continue this and have not figured it out yet, so… this story has to be finished. (that being said, if you can see how this would go forward, be sure to let me know, although I make no promises) I want to thank you all so much for being a part of "Jumping at Shadows" and making the writing process such a great one. You people are pretty awesome. B) **

**There will definitely be more chaptered stories along the way, although my big project now is the phandom wide "Through Danny Phantom." DannyPhantomSG-1 and I plan to re-watch the series over the course of a year, one episode per week. Starting this Friday (tomorrow, June 1) with "Mystery Meat." We can all talk about the show and create artwork, fanfics, or videos based off of each episode. It's going to be really fun… and even more fun if you join us! See s/8169889/1/ for more details and let me know if you're interested! ^^**


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